Life & Wisdom Quote by Sam Ewing

Tourism is sold as escape, then immediately sabotaged by its own success. Sam Ewing’s line skewers that contradiction with the clean cruelty of a one-sentence joke: the “average tourist” isn’t chasing a location so much as a feeling of singularity. They want the photo that looks undiscovered, the street that reads “authentic,” the meal that seems untouched by the global itinerary. The punchline is that this desire is statistically impossible at scale. The minute a place becomes legible as “unspoiled,” it’s already halfway to being spoiled.

Ewing’s intent isn’t just to mock the gullible vacationer; it’s to expose a deeper consumer logic. Modern travel markets an identity: not merely someone who goes somewhere, but someone who isn’t like the other someones. “Average” does heavy lifting here, because it implies the desire to be exceptional is itself a mass phenomenon. The joke lands because it collapses that self-flattering story in real time.

The subtext carries a quiet indictment of status signaling. Avoiding tourists often means avoiding people who look like you, or people who don’t. “No tourists” can be code for “no crowds,” but it can also be code for “no evidence this place has been shaped by outsiders like me.” It’s the fantasy of impact without consequence.

Contextually, Ewing wrote in an era when postwar mobility and leisure travel were becoming normalized for the middle class. The line anticipates today’s “hidden gem” economy and the way social media turns every refuge into a recommendation, then a rush. The tourist’s real destination is the illusion of being first.